Show F PATT PAT T N N im 9 r by HARLAN HATCHER copyright ergh I 1 by the ile dobbs bobba bb merrill co service CHAPTER XV continued 16 its wonderful wondern ul to see you again reuben said ive stood on a ridge waiting for the ax men mea to clear a line through the brush and heard the doves make that lonesome sound and I 1 thought about you up here on wolf pen I 1 have wanted you she surrendered to her joy without speaking watching the sun on the top of Crau Cran esnest listening to ills voice and making her on oin unspoken words couo had a lot of trouble ir III said bald ive thought about that so many things can happen all of a sudden yes she said finally things you dont ever dream could happen 1 1 I think youve about had your share now cynthia she had never talked to anyone of her grief now slie she was overcome by the moment by her feelings ind and his sympathy and she un loosed to him all that had been tight in her heart bearl so long the sickness and quick death of julia Sparr els wordless unhappiness and growing conceio over dry creek doug mason jesses going away giving up the institute to look after things the breakup break up of the place and jaspers approaching marriage As she talked slie she drew nearer dearer to him and it was ivond wonderful erful to her to feel tile the miracle of the burden lifting ind and thu heart being purged of its heaviness reuben put his hand on tier her cheek pulling her face gently to confront his own there were mere tears in her eyes his arm tightened around her ber it did not seem forward to her now to be in ili his arms in this hollow the growth of their affection had been constant in the months ot of separation and needed only this brief intimacy to reveal itsel full blon cynthia he sal said she looked at him ive been thinking and a I 1 lot of plans since I 1 left here ile he hesitated an instant lookin looking into her eyes then lie he continued theres two or three years of work down in boyd and the neighboring counties just surveying the tand land the th e iron works companies are buying up putting up another blast furnace and a nail mill I 1 do nearly all the field work dvork now and catlettsburg is a pretty place after you pass the center of town and the stores you come to a wide street with sidewalks and trees and nice dice houses in big yards then the hill begins not a high hill just a river hill ind and about halfway half way up there is a little house in a cherry and apple orchard with a garden behind it its painted white and has a wide porch and there are three sets of steps up from the street you look right out over the town and the treetops to the ohio river and where the cig BI sandy comes around west virginia and across to the farms in ohio all the way back to tile the hills you can see the big boats on the river and the little ones on the big sandy and the rafts that come float lag down both rivers theres a new steam ferry to south point and a new wharf you can see the trains going up to richardson and town down to ashland and cincinnati its not like liere here on wolf pen but it is a nice place it sounds like a right nice place does somebody live in it right now some people live in it but next nest month the v re going to move f X 01 6 Q L I 1 4 W he kissed her to a place over in coalgrove in ohio where hes going to work and then it will be empty she was bryd trying to picture this place and alt all tile the bustling lire ire it looked out upon laying it ii in tier minds eye beside the quiet and seclusion ot of wolfpen where she had spent her life ca Lint liia 11 she blotted out everything cise and looked up into ills eyes 1 I lo 10 loe e you more than ao anything thin will you do nie me tile lionor honor to be my wife and come down there arid and live with will me it thit that she was surprised or actually taken tak LD unawares it was just the hearing of it A I 1 warm lush flush overspread tier face slie she dropped her cies to the die moss on the stone ind then lifted them hem beyond it through the bare sycamore limbs to the cloud fluff above the pinnacle Illi nacle golden in the sun will you lie said yes res reuben if vou on want me ine to she said when april ue ile kissed tier her holding tier her elgin in his arms and it was natural and inevitable like a curled wave forming far out under the sky and moving always I 1 shoreward till it breaks at last on of the lie rim of warm wann san sand 11 1 I love you more than anything any tiling ile he said ind and I 1 love you reuben arvery burden oppressive to men commanding pity for their unhappy lot writing the marks of suffering below their ees and warping tile the lines about their month was removed front from them as they walked slowly down the hollow while the sun was hurrying out of the ailcy valley in its endless flight before the stars and through their eyes made bright by the high passion of their hope the world was a new ind and beautiful place wherein no sorrow ind and no failure could ever intrude CHAPTER XVI through the next nest weeks after reuben had gone centhia was much alone in and about the house she would often stand by the well in the evening the days visibly growing longer watching the shadow of the pinnacle glide ilde up lip the hillside and finally rest its on the fresh graves of sparrel an ami julia sweeping them into the eternal quiet of the dust in a year one procession of the seasons spring to spring from the garden behind tap picket fence from the lie steam mill to the profound sil silence crice of Cran esnest shelf As the days passed with their thought of reuben and the life ahead the finality of the procession be began an to seem supportable porta lile to tier her so much grief tempering the heart to the sorrow inherent in a precarious life the way lay onward and not back and was filled with ith a degree of hope bravely to the defeat of yesterday the mountain laurel a against the sun warmed armed rocks of the pinnacle would lie be flushing pink at the bud hearts and the birds would be welcoming the re turn of another spring she vituld bouli go there now to meet them ind and weave reuben and her vision of life with him into the memory of that place where she had through the years communed with herself in the afternoon she went out through the barnyard down into the just per mist in the orchard across the creek stepping through thi of the water playing among the rocks in the bed and then tile the sharp climb up lip the steep contours of the path it was good to feel again the muscle pull in her calves and thighs the thump of tier her heart the sweet intake of if fresh breath to see the valley begin be in to spread and drop away to hear boar the cattle cattie the sheep the chickens be low lier her step slop by climbing step site she mounted upward out of tile the events that had assaulted the hollows hallows in a year she felt her soul growing calmer released from tile the slurp sharp clutch of ever eer repeated broodie brookings broodings broo bro odiD dings s Sli ellen berger lumbering julia sparrel the place the place sparrel lumbering abdal julia reuben and tle tie vision of him taking possession of her at tile the pinnacle she passed her hand ov over er tier her forehead hinting her ber head breathing mountain air into ler her mouth fedelius dellill f exalted by the triumph of glad animal life over the depres depression si on of spirit she wandered round around a the rock ledges of the pinnacle peep ln down the abrupt emptiness SS to th the creek and mill below examining the miracle of columbine extracting sustenance te narice from a break in the rock musing on oil the timeless ilea heavy vy Hopp iii of crows wings the effortless sall sail ing on tile the wind up and don domi over wolfpen and cannon there were mere cardinals in the boughs of the pine tree on oil the edge of the precipice she sat on tile the bcd lcd ledge with O her feet resting 1111 it the list last shelf ind and looked across the valley 3 belding to her un worded thoughts april and another spring rolling silently into these hills anil and spilling lill into wolfpen Wolf peu pen its a queer gl gladness adneS all tangled tall cd up with a sorrow and a longing loligian in a blodys heart anen you yon see the spring coming green again I 1 reckon it li L the seed urge pent up for a winter arid and breaking out of is 1 s shell wanting to feel the earth warm carai around it and open itself and say bere I 1 al am take tile me and I 1 shall bear fruit I 1 wonder if the sweet corn seeds ds are like me thinking of mothers irden girden g as I 1 do of reuben would I 1 hire dare even to think of it corn seed into tile the warm ground man dian seed woman a planting to bear his children with will Rell beri in the spring in a few more days it will be to he be thinking of such things lings ti before it seemed like a thought of shame to think of a man mail in that way but not with reuben and not now how like it was a part of a blodys life beautiful the best pirt part looking to this time strong lie be Is and gentle in his strength last sin in I 1 sat liere here ind ani hai ha never dever seen him then mother wa was 9 making her garden then daddy was excited about ills mill not thinking thin hing of selling land or lying on OD Crall eSnest shelf lit in a year rear I 1 will think of my father without him jasper to lo carry ou on jaspers new wife to have the house now ilow how does a benjy KU go about beginning to think about things first ion have a place where you feel alone milli yourself like this where the hie lay of the land ind is like all tile folds in III your own soul they fit light oer each other oilier and then iou li livent lia nent ent any body any mure more the way the sky and the mountains conie come together in ili llie file blue the stir of thoughts rises there in fit the heair of god it conics comes with the airy waves of tile the tops ind and the lark dark blue pockets over tin the hollows liol lows surging to me play of ills his thoughts forever boating beating on oil this pinnacle this cardinal feather fluttering out of tile the sky almost into my lap i I 1 guess it must bo be a blood drop from fr rn the lie head of god the sudden bell note of the cardinals call from the laurel spray is the music of ills his voice through these hills it does not belong to the redbird another one s sounded it last lear still another the year before ile he lends it to eich bird generation blowing upon then with will ills his breath is as they come into tile lie earth the indians heard it too to 0 and they are dead my grandfathers hoard heard it anil and my fattier fat lier anil and they are dead as the birds are now I 1 hoar hear it goins going on the feathers nutter flutter in the pine boughs boug its and flit down into the apple orchard liard in wolfson for a season or two and are brushed away cut but the bell note sings on forever over these hills in tile the very ery breath of god or could it be after all a sigh 1 it A despairing sigh from a bleed bleeding P heart before the black plague on baks backs aings aien s stines tile the melody ot of ahe song soil my fat liers tiers song stopped by a stone in 11 the hands of nicked men I 1 will think of him yonder is the upper ford and the big rocks where a great evil ciak battered the sons song front from my fathers month there floats bloats over F meadow the lie black shadow from tile the only cloud in the sky it aecus to lie ile now how at rest on the rocks at the very spot where they struck him down and still no trace of them that did dai it wily why did it have to happen or doug broken up tip and blinded blendl A by a worthless log there is no wily why no reckoning with destruction and death hurrying on somewhere else to strike igalo but giving iving no answer to a blodys vly whre where in the heart 0 of god does death dwell I 1 guess there Is also no answer to a blodys where 1 I keep thinking of death I 1 will not of death I 1 will think of daddy of sparrel pattern livery every eye between here and Pi keville turned upon him when lie he rode jasper tries to sit a horse like him but he cant jesse jcsse seems to be dreaming when he rides abdal Is fidgety ald acty daddy rode upright and easy and men looked at him and women I 1 cant keep going straight with a thought I 1 steal up on one to catch it in hand like it was a moth on a grapentine gra peine peNine and when I 1 reach out my fingers flug gers it flutters away reuben marrying me married it is a 1 strange word wife from cynthia pattern who always lived with her mother and father an and brothers is as a girl sister to wife and the love of adian a man married and in a house with haw together in the same bed with reuben husband lie he will ic be children julia or sparrel ur ir ought lie he to be called jeliben Re liben to leave Wol filen and go away alth tile the way mother left scioto and came licie with sparrel pattern arid and granny louverna from virginia with saul sall ills his eyes when lie he told of the lie house in ili tile the orchard on the hill above tile the liver I 1 ire I 1 could live forever in the look in ills his eyes maybe I 1 could marry in ill mothers brothers dross dress with it a little making over for she was taller than I 1 at and prettier cr reuben says no but she really rea was how the days go since lie went away planning all the time fixing out clothes clot lies ind and quills flu and 1 I bla blankets it tou too good to use to keep for keep sakes no not dot too III good for reuben to use 1 that day jesse went away and I 1 cried and doti came ca me and a a d grabbed gray 1 ed me ind said reuben I 1 get ge me 1 what tie he aimed to do then and if ile he would have done it it if it badat hadn t happened to him ue he Is a 1 fine boy and I 1 could nearly dearly love him blin for the proud ay ho he went into himself ind and never said another word to me I 1 hope lie marries judy and has it good family I 1 ever have haie doug 1 I enill vi ill think of my fattier father I 1 never heard him lift liis his tongue on oil anybody not even on the bad men coming into these hills and giving them a bad b ILI name wily why d bud bad men kill hill tin ille good went well because lic cause they sneak behind a lock front from behind they none of them stand up to him eye to eye like a nun dian straight and fair abdal calls them dirty devils de ils and keeps saving to jasper they ought to 10 catell catch and hang bans them jesse thinks Hatler ll get them because lie he has some clues it might lead to moio feti feuds Ij theres been too much fending and lighting fighting in these hills daddy always said about those harrison Ilar ind 1111 ho burgs patterns Patt eins have kept of I 1 IDY trouble ever since abe thee e ULC arcu j hen helk i wi tile laws got to keep tills this valley an orderly place for a matt man anil and ills his family lie said that evening before lie he wont went away I 1 guess that meant jasper and ills his family jesse Is wrapped up lip in the law find wont want to lire ive liere here aural is rl right ht now getting reidy to go on a raft I 1 hope lie he takes it around the cunes without running into the lie ba hank n k or would it be better it if lie grounded no it lies iles so lie ile ought to keep it hell go on down to cincinnati or up to pittsburgh im sure hearing shelton berger talk of the world ger ile he owes me for ills board uell hell never offer to pay it lie he owes daddy a thousand dollars on a note and a on the place josse jesse says it ought to haie hae been a mortgage instead of 0 at note because its hard bard to collect a nule note I 1 dont know neither did jesse jcsse either last fall jesse says hell look after all that now ile he says there is enough money for me to have hare twelve hundred dollars when I 1 go with reuben Is that an awful lot of money and jentien has some saved it would be enough to buy the orchard so we ane could start oft off in IM ur own place reuben will |